Our View: Feds should tend to levee

Last week, the Tensas Basin Levee District began work to repair a bank caving in a Ouachita River bendway that had eaten into the levee following flooding created by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008.

This isn't a little bit of erosion. It's a 2,000-foot gash that could have cause a levee failure.

A temporary repair in 2010 protected the region in the short term, but this project will involve creating a levee setback, which is basically building a new levee behind the damaged one.

It's not the only such bank caving along the Ouachita. It's just the most critical.

In fact, a 2003 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study identified 221 caving banks along the river and estimated would cost about $225 million to fix them all.

The levee setback in Columbia will cost about $1.6 million and funded by the local levee district.

Tensas Basin Levee District officials, led by executive director John Stringer, have rightly claimed the corps should be responsible for funding and repairing the most dangerous of these erosion sites.

The levee district was never meant to be responsible for major levee repairs on this federal project. It was created as a levee maintenance partner for the corps that would also assist in flood fights.

Our local taxpayers, who pay an annual property tax to fund Tensas Basin Levee District operations, can't afford to foot the bill for these projects.

"We're not happy because we don't believe the local taxpayers should be responsible, but we have no choice except to fix the levee to protect people and property," he said.

Stringer said U.S. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has assured him he will preserve language in the 2013 Water Resources Development Act requiring the corps to conduct a study and pilot program to implement bank stabilization projects along navigable waterways.

Vitter is the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and will be part of a conference committee that melds together the Senate and House version of the bill.

It's a measure desperately needed to shore up the wall protecting the people and property of northeastern Louisiana, and we encourage Vitter to make sure the language stays in the final version of the bill.

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Our View: Feds should tend to levee

Last week, the Tensas Basin Levee District began work to repair a bank caving in a Ouachita River bendway that had eaten into the levee following flooding created by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008.